


Matrona

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Lady Smallwood and Mycroft, character study.





	

Lady Alicia Smallwood and Mycroft Holmes had known each other for years. She remembered when she'd been in roughly his current position, back when the whispers first started coming in about the whiz-kid who'd been recruited. He wasn't seen much, she noted. When she commented, her colleagues chortled, but refused to say why. It was some time before she learned.

She could recall one lunch with Sir Edwin at Smiles, on Jermyn Street. They'd been seated at the front, and were happily eating a starter and downing white wine while waiting for Alicia's husband to meet them. She caught a flash of vivid ginger-auburn hair out of the corner of her eye, and turned, eye drawn by all that flaming hair--wavy hair in a popular bowl haircut, more current than the old Beatles style, but not the painfully conservative side-part with short sides and swept back fringe that remained popular in and among the Foreign Office crowd. She smiled. The ginger was young--barely twenty, if that, she thought--and charming in a gawky, puppy-dog way. A bit plump. A bit of a fashion mess. He owned more freckles than the Queen owned swans on the Thames. He had a determined expression, and was already carrying a bag from a posh bootier, and was headed for Alfred Snooker, a menswear shop next to Smiles.

"I pray he comes out with a better suit than he's going in with," she said, grinning. 

Sir Edwin gave a shout of laughter. "Blazes--it's that Holmes puppy. I must admit, it would be hard to walk out with a worse suit. But, then, what can one expect of a boffin just graduated from St. Andrews?"

"St. Andrews?"

"Yes. Apparently he decided he wasn't comfortable with the Oxbridge lot, and chose to be educated amongst the highland cattle in Scotland." He leaned over his starter and popped a bite into his mouth, then washed it down with the wine. "Word is he's socially hopeless, but then...analyst. Quite good, they say, but a boffin."

She considered. The boy had already passed into the shop, but it was impossible to forget that face, that image. 

"Percival," she said.

"What?"

"A veritable Percival: innocent country fool out on holy quest. All the knights of the Round Table think he's a bit of a prat. Call him 'Pretty Hands.' He makes me think of that."

"Well--you're right about the part about being a prat. Has the social skills of...of..." He scowled. "Spock, from that idiotic American show. All brains, no class at all."

The conversation ended, then, as Woodie--Lord Smallwood--arrived and the topic was lost in the greetings. But Lady Smallwood could still see out the window, and noticed when the chubby, lanky redhead passed back up Jermyn street with a bag from the store, and a face so innocent her heart broke for him. Poor lad...

Which was only one of the reasons she suggested him to her own supervisor when they lost a senior member. She was diligent--took the time to research him, collect gossip, determine what was known about the boy. She passed it all on to old McIntery, too--she was not going to get on the wrong side of her supervisor by failing to give him all the information she had. She was determined to climb in the service, and the fact that she was "Lady Alicia Smallwood" twice over--a ladyship through both her father and her husband tied around her neck like an albatross-- did not help. 

"He's from an old Yorkshire and Cumbrian family," she said. "Irish and Saxon and Scots Celts. They prospered, and the family has holdings all over the UK now. Had some kind of problem with their family a decade or so back. I haven't been able to get to those records. Perhaps you can--I'm still low rung on the ladder. He was largely home schooled until he was in his early teens. Cut to St. Andrew's as soon as he could manage. Started doing coding work for us when he was barely seventeen. Apparently socially hopeless, but has pattern recognition skills you would not believe, and pretty near perfect recall. He should suit us well so long as you're not looking for someone to go ambling around as a social genius. Oh--word is he's, um..." she glanced at her boss. "Er--he plays on _your_ cricket team."

"And why is this common knowledge?"

"Apparently through a complete lack of effort to obscure the fact," she said, shrugging. "As I said--no more social sense than a baby. He even told his recruiter. But--it's not like it's easy to blackmail those who are already revealed."

Holmes arrived at the department a bit leaner, a bit more fit, and quite a bit better dressed than he'd been that day on Jermyn Street. He had a ridiculous flop of fringe that fell over his forehead, a long, beaky nose, a comedian's face--expressive and attractive but never too pretty--and he was every bit as brilliant as advertised. Every bit as innocent as she'd been told, too. Poor lad.

McIntery took the boy. Probably in every sense of the word, she thought, wryly. The old bastard. He did love a lad...and never gave a thought what it would do to the boy to lose his mentor and his lover in one blow to angina. She wasn't sure what Mycroft saw in McIntery--a stable older man, a kindly father-figure, a mentor, a man with a fascinating life behind him? She was never sure who used who there...until the old man died, and his gold ring appeared days later on Mycroft Holmes' right-hand ring-finger. 

She didn't pay all that much attention to him. She was young, blissfully married, rising in her profession. She sidestepped out of McIntery's department a year or so after his death, taking a spot as head of an MI6 office focused on ethics cases. Not that she ever lost track of M's place. Not that she managed to note when "M" stopped meaning "McIntery" and began to mean "Mycroft." It was slow and subtle. At some point anyone who needed an analyst called for Mycroft and his team for backup. Your odds of surviving in the field, succeeding in the mission, excelling in front of your peers, went sky high when you took on Mycroft Holmes as your backup. 

She was the one who arranged for him to be seconded to a field unit for a few years--and she was the one who understood why he did it. It ticked off the final little box on his resume, and when McIntery's official heir retired, Mycroft was ready to take over. That proved to be a bit of a battle. Sir Edwin had his heart set on that spot, and for a time Lady Smallwood was concerned that true warfare would break out as the two men jockeyed for position and strutted for the powers overhead. In the end she was the one who resolved it, inviting Sir Edwin to oversee her own department's analysis. 

"I'm flattered," he'd said, chuffing and huffing. "At least someone knows the worth of a real expert, rather than that popinjay Holmes."

She didn't say that she'd intentionally chosen the lesser man for her own department. Mycroft had earned his laurels, in her opinion--and she had the skills to cover for Sir Edwin's shortcomings.  And she didn't want to end up in a fight to hold her own department. She had the measure of Sir Edwin, by now, and knew she could keep him on a short rein. Mycroft was a less sure gamble.

He'd changed since that first day she'd seen him on Jermyn street. He was fit, these days. He'd darkened his blaze of hair in slow, cautious increments--only to start losing it when he'd reached the dignified shade of deep chestnut he currently displayed to the world. He'd taken charge of his appearance to a degree that was a wonder to behold: from perfect side-part hair glued down with product to the finest tailoring of first Jermyn street, and later Savil Row, and now of private little tailors who did not advertise because they didn't have to. Customers came to them on bended knee with references from lesser tailors and greater social contacts. He was polished, groomed, and the rough edges of his social skills had been tucked into a daunting personal aura of reserve and calm. No one told stories about him over lunch, now...at least, not the kind that led to uproarious laughter and averted eyes when he came into the room again. He no longer blurted out people's secrets with the dumb assumption that what was obvious to him must be obvious to everyone--and thus not subject to rules of tact and silence. He no longer crashed into potential friendships with the off-putting assumption that friends were problems to be dealt with, not assets to be treasured. He still did not fit in--but he'd managed to convey the notion that this was a matter of his inhuman competence, rather than of his inhuman naivete and innocence. 

They had come to know each other, in the odd way two professionals separated by their own projects but united in loyalties and, occasionally, in focus, do. She knew when his baby brother first became a problem on such a scale that he was given a national threat file of his very own. She knew the reason his involvement with the Sherrinford installation was necessary. Indeed, under the seal of the rose she knew a number of things she was fairly sure that reckless Sherlock did not, though he might argue they were more his business than hers. She was actually drawn into meetings dealing with the "Holmes Family Dilemma." More than once. 

More than twice. 

By the third time she'd developed a rough admiration for the terrible child. He had his skills and uses, and poor Mycroft's need to protect and shield him from the world--and the world from him--did not improve the boy's life at all from his own point of view. Not that she did not feel for Mycroft. In this, no matter how he'd changed, she still found herself thinking, "Poor lad. That poor, poor lad." His burdens, she thought, were even heavier than her own. His secrets darker and harder to endure. His sense of responsibility to both the world and the beloved brother were more enormous than even her sense of duty and love for Woodie and his idiotic errors. 

Men. Really. You'd think a male erection was proof positive of a female's age and maturity. If she was old enough to provoke desire, she was old enough to pursue, and old enough to seduce, and old enough to...

Thank God Woodie had found out before it got more serious, she thought, and forgot to think more about Mycroft or Sherlock. Until the night she had to choose one brother or the other for Woodie's sake and his safety. That damned Magnussen. In the end she decided because...that poor lad. He already carried enough weight, and to add in herself, and Woodie, and then make him choose how to handle his pet gossip distributor? To him Magnussen was a convenience--a way of leaking information he wished to leak. Lady Smallwood? She thought the man was subhuman. But she didn't want to burden Mycroft with the problem. Not when she'd begun to suspect Sherlock himself was more weight than he could continue to carry. No--better to go the younger one. The stupider one. He'd take care of Magnussen without Mycroft having to carry any further weight, or choose to disappear anyone he still found useful. She wanted Magnussen dealt with...and she was willing to include "dead" in the list of resolutions that would qualify as "dealt with." The younger boy--he'd do it for her. He'd help her protect Woodie...dear, beloved, foolish, honest Woodie. 

She loved her husband. She loved him in spite of himself. She loved him for what he was at his best, and sometimes she loved him for what he was at his worst. She knew he'd failed her a time or two. Hell, she'd failed him in different ways over the years. But she could honestly look back over a lifetime with Woodie and swear that she did not regret a single day, would not eradicate a single moment with him. She was the stronger of the two of them. She was, she knew, the smarter one. She was the one who had to take care of both of them. But that didn't change a thing: she loved him, and would face down the world to save him. 

Or, later...too late...to have her revenge on his killer. 

Sherlock was a fucked up drug-soaked loose canon rolling around the deck of the ship of state, taking out honorable men and women, and wearying even St. Mycroft...the Percival of the undercover services even now. Pretty Hands. The nebbish turned knight. 

It was for all those reasons she later chose to let Mycroft get the lad out of the hit she herself would have been inclined to put out on him otherwise. But--the boy had killed Magnussen, who'd tormented and shamed Woodie into suicide. And it was Mycroft who was staggering with the pain of that. 

Not that he thought anyone saw it. Mycroft had spent too long with that emotional idiot of a brother: he didn't understand that many people would only have to look at the million little tells to know he was using pride and valor to hide grief and fear and loss. His brother was now a murderer--one more criminal genius to carry on his never-too-wide shoulders. One more weight to bend his back and bow his head. She could see it, though--and she could see a lost, pudgy boy with flame-bright hair walking down Jermyn street, hoping to find a suit people would not laugh at.

Poor lad. Poor, dear, lovely boy. Sixteen years her junior. Her trainee, if you looked at it in certain lights. Her protege. 

So she spared Sherlock...

He was rude, and horrible, and unkind to all his most vital benefactors, Mycroft first and foremost. But he was a charming, wicked boy and Mycroft loved him. It was love of the boy--trust of the boy--that put Mycroft up to that idiotic trick of blocking her access and interrogating her for hours. It was the boy's own genius that it proved to have some basis, though not the offensive, insulting notion he'd put in Mycroft's head. As if she'd betray her country! But...she did understand. She understood Mycroft, and if it hurt that he had failed to understand her, well...he was still, under the polish and control, the socially uncertain, awkward lad he'd always been, wasn't he? 

And then that Watson woman was killed, and John Watson went mad, and Sherlock went madder, and Mycroft, gawky, awkward Mycroft, was left in a desperate effort to comprehend what he had never experienced. 

She grinned wryly, thinking of his confusion over her assumption Mary Watson's death would have an effect on his brother--on his cross dismay that no one seemed to manage death like a Holmes did--or like a Holmes, in his opinion, ought--and as Sherlock was not. She heard the story later of Mrs. Hudson chasing him and his team out of Sherlock's flat like St. Patrick chasing the serpents out of Ireland, belittling him for his inability to understand the blend of grief and loss and pain and guilt in play, demonstrated by that single CD...

Once again they were whispering at Mycroft Holmes and laughing at his human blindness. 

It was then it occurred to her he was alone...almost as alone as she was, now. Maybe more--the brother he loved could not be trusted, as Woodie had been. So Mycroft carried his load alone. 

She didn't waste time wondering why she'd never tried to get closer. Mycroft wasn't good at that. She was married. They were in different departments and posts, with different aims and goals. He was gay. She was not. And, yet...

Poor lad. Would it have been too much to invite him out for a pint, she wondered. They both attended the Diogenes. She could have raised a finger and called for two Brandy Alexanders. She could have told him that silly joke Woodie had loved so much, about elephants the size of fleas, and why you didn't want to find them on your shaggy dog. he might have smiled at the rigidly logical illogic of it. 

And, so, when it became clear that Baby Brother was out of control again, she found herself checking. She saw more than Mycroft knew. She saw the exhaustion. She saw that, beneath the new sophistication and competence was a man who did not understand the muddle of guilt and anger and longing and fear that had torn apart the little Baker Sreet community, leaving Sherlock alone and grieving. Mycroft, armored against all deaths, failed to understand--and his failure cloaked him, whispering of confusion he didn't know how to ask about, and pride that feared to once more be the laughingstock of the intel community. Percival--who might very well obtain the grail, but who would never quite fit into humanity. Not without a Kundry to teach him salvation and humanity. 

When that mess, too, was resolved, she made the choice, and offered him a drink. Her heart laughed and cried at once, at the confused look in his eye. Poor boy. Why, oh why, had she waited so long? She'd had no son or daughter, she'd lost her husband. Why had she never reached out to Mycroft. 

She wondered if he'd accept...and when he did, she smiled, and opened her own umbrella over him to guard against the rain, and linked an arm through his, and they'd walked together to the Diogenes, and proceeded to talk in one of the private rooms for hours. When, at last, he cried, she held him like a mother hen hides her chicks beneath her wings, and loved him.

 


End file.
